Wonder and amazement in all. There is no evidence in any discipline to support that we must or even benefit from losing that stance. Some of the worlds famous geniuses have made statements suggesting that the greatness of their achievements didn’t come from “intellectual power”, but from their attitudes. From the simple desire to know, and to ask “what if”. Einstein didn’t have plans of changing the world. Had no idea really what people would do with his ideas. It wasn’t ambition that drove him to his achievements. He said himself it was simple curiosity. An idea fired his imagination.

So in all of our getting, we get a lot of knowledge. Where is the wisdom? Why is the difference a confusing issue? The wisdom is within us, and it’s no great feat to get in touch with it. But living that life can have its challenges.

Just start to recognize it. Insight arrived at by realization will always outstrip any process of reason we will ever be capable of. So much import is put on intellectual power, reason and rationality. It’s really not that useful. It does have its uses, but as an asset it fluctuates a lot with illness and fatigue and emotional distress, and yet somehow we are supposed to rely on it for almost everything? Doesn’t that seem a bit strange? We are forced to try too. By a system that doesn’t want individuals to be grounded, to be empowered and in touch.

We live a modern life based upon the technology and reason of our parents and their parents before them, and we use their accomplishments to hurt ourselves and each other. If progress is virtuous then why aren’t we? We can make endless things. Engineering doesn’t seem to have a limit. Even genetics now. I am not anti technology. Technology is just whatever it was designed to be. I am speaking critically of the group paradigm.

It’s not the technology, but the commerce that is driving us from ourselves. The greed of so many. It’s designed by commercial people. Not of the adaptations we have created for ourselves. That’s why it so often fails to simply be the tool we need and nothing more. They produce in ego and think this is mine and I did this and fail to consider what their actions do in the big picture.

Simplicity is not inferiority. In Taoism, there is a line of reasoning, an explanation in part for why some technologies and designs fail. There is a simple order in the world. Everything has a “te” or virtue intrinsic to itself. Its own spirit or way of being. What they say is that which goes against the tao, the great way, cannot stand. Will not endure. If something is viable it will be viable not by human force of will, but by human understanding of what was there beforehand. We try to endure by our own force of will and we cannot. So we lose our root, become ungrounded. You cannot endure by merely deciding to. You endure and prosper by living in the way you are meant to. According to your own nature and strengths, not “just because”. And honestly not by medicine or any technology that is based on “doing better than nature”.

We can work with nature. We cannot do better. The bigger balance is beyond any technology we now have or will ever be capable of. It is brought about by being the true you and the true you didn’t come about by design, not by any learning. It is a living thing. A process of growth. Not anything you can make or own.

Your Insight on “Wonder and Amazement”

Jeff on Saturday, February 14th 2009

You are so right about commerce. This nation is enslaved to it, it
is a curse. If not for greed, all of our cars would be running on
hydrogen, or something better right now and we would likely have free electricity.
This is nothing new in the world, it can all be traced back to Noah’s son Japeth. 😈